The new Trump acolyte no one saw coming: Nancy Mace

He called her a “grandstanding loser” and a RINO. She said his “entire legacy was wiped out” on Jan. 6, 2021.

But all of a sudden, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) has turned into one of former President Donald Trump’s unlikeliest top defenders.

On primetime and daytime news shows over the past two weeks — and on Twitter and Facebook — Mace has accused President Joe Biden’s administration of trying to stop Democrats’ “No. 1 opponent for the presidency.” On the night this month that news of Trump’s latest indictment broke, Mace was the first member of Congress to go on Fox News.

“Donald Trump’s no fan of mine, he primaried me last year,” Mace told host Harris Faulkner that evening, referring to the former president endorsing her opponent in the GOP contest. “So, I’m not a shill, but I see this, and I see how unfair it’s been.”

It was a remarkable turn for someone who sharply criticized Trump following the riot at the Capitol. And it likely won’t be the last, as Republican elected officials maneuver ahead of a 2024 presidential primary that Trump continues to dominate.

In a recent interview, Mace told POLITICO she has no ill will toward Trump — and she isn't ruling out backing him to become the party's nominee.

“We can’t afford four more years of Joe Biden,” Mace said. “I’m willing to bury the hatchet to save the country, and I know President Trump is too.”

On the night of Trump’s indictment, which she learned about while in the cable network’s hair and makeup chair, she said his nomination is likely now a done deal.

The next day, Trump through an assistant sent a text message to Mace, thanking her for sticking up for him, according to a person familiar with the conversation.

“Of course,” Mace replied, “This is fucked up.”

Mace changing her tune on Trump and leaving open the possibility of backing his campaign is a sign that some of his one-time critics may soon enough wind up in his camp.

Her rush to Trump’s side since the indictment has not gone unrewarded in Trump world currency. On Twitter, the Trump campaign’s rapid response account and Trump adviser Jason Miller shared articles touting Mace’s comments. The MAGA War Room, an account operated by the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc., has uploaded and retweeted Mace’s TV hits.

Aides to both Mace and Trump say there has been no coordination between the camps or talking points shared.

But they have longstanding ties, dating back to when Mace worked as a multistate field director on Trump’s 2016 race. Her campaign media consultant, Chris LaCivita, is now part of Trump’s inner circle as a senior adviser. And Mace’s campaign manager, Austin McCubbin, now serves as Trump’s state director in South Carolina. Since taking on his new Trump campaign role, McCubbin has floated to both camps the possibility of a Mace endorsement.

“The fact that Nancy has been a constant and consistent presence in defense of President Trump has not gone unnoticed,” LaCivita said of Mace’s remarks in recent weeks.

Following Mace’s flurry of television hits coming to Trump’s defense, two Trump world aides privately remarked on the prospect of Mace as his running mate — both noting that she could potentially be helpful in reaching crucial suburban women in a general election matchup that Trump lost last time around.

Mace hasn’t yet made an endorsement in the Republican presidential primary, despite her deep ties to two other candidates in the race. Some expected her to back Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who campaigned for Mace last year when Trump backed her primary challenger. And Mace likewise avoided endorsing Sen. Tim Scott, the state’s junior senator who also lives in her district. The pair attend the same church, something Mace began doing at Scott’s invitation in 2019, when she was going through a rough patch.

“I've got this love triangle,” Mace said of being caught between her two constituents’ presidential campaigns and her former campaign manager working for Trump.

Mace is now championing the former president’s policy positions, too — in particular, abortion, an issue on which Mace has publicly criticized her party. She has called for easier access to birth control and legal abortions until an unspecified time period between 15 and 20 weeks of pregnancy.

“The only candidate that I've seen articulate a message in that regard, that I think is more reasonable, is Donald Trump,” Mace said. “So imagine my surprise, you know, seeing that I agree more with him than many of the other candidates because some of the candidates haven't articulated their position, or they're vague or they don't want to answer the question.”

After appointing the Supreme Court justices who ultimately cast deciding votes to strike down Roe v. Wade, Trump has since distanced himself from the current anti-abortion rights movement, which is pushing candidates to endorse a national ban on the procedure after, at most, 15 weeks of pregnancy. Trump has said the matter should be left to states and criticized a six-week law on the books in Florida and other states as “harsh.”

Mace has spent her two and a half years in Congress defying traditional party factions and co-existing in spaces that seem contradictory to most observers. A supporter of marriage equality and marijuana legalization who defeated an incumbent Democrat to win a swing district in 2020, Mace notably voted to hold former Trump aide Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress. But she voted against impeaching Trump in 2021, and more recently bucked House GOP leadership’s debt ceiling deal. She has been especially vocal in recent weeks in calling for further investigation into a whistleblower’s allegations that Biden and his son received payments from a Ukrainian energy company in exchange for political favors, a claim the FBI says it is still looking into.

Asked about concerns raised by some of Trump’s GOP challengers, including Haley, that he may have imperiled members of the military by holding onto unsecured classified documents, Mace criticized the fact that he has been charged under the Espionage Act and said a larger conversation needs to be had about how the nation’s leaders have handled and are expected to handle sensitive documents.

“Trump is not a spy,” she said. “I don't believe he would ever intentionally put our military men and women in uniform in harm's way.”

If Mace’s recent show of support for Trump develops into a full-throated endorsement, the congresswoman will likely face more questions about her past comments on Trump’s handling of Jan. 6 — and his lashing out at her as a result.

“Obviously if you've committed a crime, you’ve got to go to jail,” Mace said of people who attacked the Capitol that day. “But also at the same time, I empathize with people who empathize about January 6.

“I've had political violence in my own life,” Mace continued, recalling that someone keyed “fuck you” into her Chevy Tahoe weeks before her 2020 election, and that her places of residence in both South Carolina and Washington have been vandalized.

“So,” she said, “I see both sides of it.”